FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this an official Catholic site?

No. This site is not operated by the Catholic Church or anyone officially representing the Catholic Church. It is a private "apostolate" set up by a young Catholic family in Australia. Having said that, we hope that the site is entirely loyal to the Church.

Are you a priest?

No! We're a young family with 3 children (so far!). This site is operated privately, essentially as a hobby. We don't employ any staff. It gets updated in the evening (after the children have gone to bed) and on weekends!

Why does it sometimes take so long for you to update or fix things (like dead links, Cardinals who have died, errors)?

Because we're a young family with 3 small children and this site gets updated in the evening (after the children have gone to bed) and on weekends!

Where are you?

We're in Australia. That explains why the Start Page feast days might be out of kilter the first time you visit us and why the forum times might seem rather odd! Click on the "Change Timezone" link on the Start Page to adjust it to know what feastday it is in your timezone whenever you log on.

Why are the feastdays wrong?

If you've checked the timezone is right (see previous question) then it may be because the liturgical calendar in your country or diocese has been changed from the usual calendar that applies throughout the world. Each country has a few of its own special feasts and many countries have changed and moved certain feasts (particularly holy days of obligation). We will often note when the feastday is different in Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada or the USA. However, we may not take note of every variation in those areas or elsewhere in the world.

I want to help. What can I do?

1. Pray for us. 2. Join us in the Discussion Forum and discuss your faith with newcomers and enquirers (and old-timers!). 3. Get into the habit of making all your book purchases through the Catholic-Pages.com Bookrack so that we receive a commission on each item. 4. Suggest solid Catholic sites for inclusion in the Catholic Pages Directory. 5. Make the Catholic Start Page the home page for your browser and visit daily (or more often!). 6. Tell your friends about us. 7. Put a note about us in your parish newsletter or on your parish bulletin board.

Why the quotes from Josemaria Escriva? Is this site run by Opus Dei?

We are not associated with Opus Dei in any way and we are not members. The site features quotes from Blessed Josemaria Escriva because we believe they are inspirational meditations, and because there are enough of them to provide a short quote for each day of the year.

You've been saying the Catholic Church Factbook is coming for so long. When will it finally be available?

We know! We know! We feel guilty enough about that already! It is coming along slowly and will be available ... [drumroll] "soon"! It's a big job and it's easy to be distracted from it...

Are you owned by Amazon.com?

No. The way we meet the expenses of the site is by providing links to Amazon.com and by recommending the good solid Catholic books they carry in their (enormous, daunting) catalogue for you to buy. Amazon.com pays us a commission (up to 15%) for everything you buy from them when you've followed one of our links (even the non-Catholic stuff like music CDs, secular books, power tools!).

I get an error message sometimes when I try and access the site. Something about a script not being able to continue running. How do I fix that?

You don't. It's a problem on our end: a Microsoft bug in the server software. it usually fixes itself fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is come back a little later. This bug doesn't affect the Discussion Forum. So, if you visit the forum regularly, add it to your Favourites next time you visit and then use your favorites menu to reach it whenever the error prevents you from getting to the rest of the site. It happens fairly infrequently, but just enough to be annoying!

I typed in CatholicPages.com once and went to a totally different site. What's going on?

e3mil.com has registered the address catholicpages.com and typing it in redirects you to their home page. Make sure when you tell people about Catholic-Pages.com, you remind them about the hyphen! And you can tell e3mil.com you don't think it's a very appropriate way to attract visitors to their site by emailing them from their website.

Can you help me find Fr O'Reilly who I knew when I was 10?

We have no access to any official records that could help us locate priests around the world. Your best bet is to contact the diocese where you think the priest is located and ask them for a contact address.

Can you help me find the address of a diocese?

The fastest way for you to track down this information is to ring your local Catholic Church or try the telephone directory. We have some access to this information (and will eventually put it all online in the Catholic Church Factbook, but for now, we simply can't respond to these email requests as quickly as needed.

Can you tell me what the Church teaches about ...?

No, sorry. We simply don't have time to answer individual queries of this nature. The site provides thousands of links to websites, documents and articles that might help you find the answer to your question. There are also dozens of very knowledgeable people who contribute regularly to the discussion in the Forum. If you post your question there, you are likely to get several knowledgeable and helpful responses very quickly. You might also like to try the Ask the Experts service at EWTN.